Surrey Board of Trade Supports BC Food Security Task Force Report:

The Future of B.C.’S Food System

The Surrey Board of Trade, the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, wrote collectively to express their overall support of the BC Food Security Task Force’s Report The Future of B.C.’S Food System and its four recommendations:

1. Adopt the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) and seek to implement these in future agricultural policies.

2. Establish BC as a global agritech leader by supporting the innovation pathway including the development, demonstration, and deployment of novel technologies.

3. Create an Agriculture and Agritech Institute as a collaborative entity across Post-secondary Institutions to drive excellence in priority areas and deepen the knowledge base and talent pool for the agriculture innovation agenda.

4. Ensure there is a place to grow food and support emerging agritech industries by examining land use policies and other regulatory considerations.

BC has an opportunity to become global leaders in the agriculture sector.

“Food security is of paramount importance, especially in light of the recent pandemic,” said Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade. “We are at a crossroads to become world leaders or to fall by the wayside. Rapid action is key.”

The group supports recommendation #1 in principle but its application in BC is still vague.

Relevant stakeholders, Indigenous groups, academic institutions, and business advocacy organizations being part of the discussion on how the Province will adopt the SDGS UN definitions and the application of the mentioned guiding principles “People, Planet and Profit” is key.

We are pleased with the suggested action to “ensure alignment between the incubation-acceleration strategy and the broader agriculture and agritech agenda by having the incubator lead serve on the Expert Advisory Council” mandated on the implementation of the SDGS.

Environmental protection, sustainability and economic growth can co-exist and we believe that investment into agri-technology and a talented labour pool will be key to this achievement. We are encouraged by

BC’S mandate in “fostering economic growth that generates steady increases in real wages, healthy increases in per capita real government revenue without raising tax rates and benefits the entire province.”

We strongly support the following areas of focus and investment:

• A land-use strategy that creates specific agriculturalindustrial zones within the ALR and reviewing allocations and selection factors for allocated zones every three years;

• An Agritech incubatoraccelerator and establishing innovation corridors; i. in collaboration with Innovate BC, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of

Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness; ii. by leveraging other sources of funding such as industrial, venture capital and other levels of government; and, • Establishing an Institute for Agricultural Excellence.

At this time on the road to recovery and POST-COVID-19 we ask for your leadership on a renewed focus on reinvigorating BC’S economy of which agriculture is a key sector. We hope to see continued momentum on the opportunities as identified in the report, The Future of B.C.’S Food System.